Miro Cernetig
Sun
If you have the sneaking suspicion the world might work a little better if our politicians just set aside partisan politics and got down to the business of governing, look no further for vindication.
The City of Vancouver and the provincial government, along with a foundation stacked with private-sector leaders, have agreed to cooperate on a $225-million plan to build eight social housing complexes for 1,000 of the city’s poorest.
It represents the biggest drive to build social housing in a generation. In the decades ahead, as people cycle through the project, it will lift thousands of homeless people off the street into better lives.
And it all came from an all-too-rare group effort.
You can thank ex-mayor Sam Sullivan, who served under the Non-Partisan Association banner, for getting the ball rolling, when he freed up 18 key pieces of city land worth $64 million for social housing. We can thank his nemesis, Mayor Gregor Robertson, whose Vision Vancouver took power away from the NPA at city hall in the last election, for keeping things going by continuing to focus on homelessness and relentlessly pushing the province for money.
There’s also the investment in dollars and time of the Streetohome Foundation — led by such business luminaries as mining magnate Frank Giustra, B.C. Business Council president Virginia Greene and Vancity’s CEO Tamara Vrooman. Giustra, who spent time around shelters to understand the scope of the challenge, pumped in the first $5 million of the $20 million the foundation has promised.
But mostly, the accolades belong to provincial Housing Minister Rich Coleman.
He kept the dream alive by fighting for the right idea, regardless of what political party held control of city hall. Coleman was able to use his position on the government’s agenda and priorities committee, which sets policy, to prevent anyone using the province’s plunge into deficit financing after the global financial crisis as an excuse to delay or scale back this social initiative.
Coleman, often pigeonholed as one of the red-meat-eating conservatives in the Liberal government, took over the provincial housing ministry more than three years ago. Many thought it an improbable role for a partisan pol and an assignment — straight from Premier Gordon Campbell — with little political upside.
At the time, the number of homeless on Vancouver’s streets was reaching its zenith. The Olympics were on the horizon and the international media were focusing in on the city’s army of homeless people. There seemed to be little time left for any dramatic, political solutions.
Coleman surprised us by finding them.
He began a $140-million splurge on rooming houses, buying up flophouses and dilapidated hotels set for redevelopment. He renovated them for the poor.
Coleman also made it clear he would be cracking down on any abuse of social housing or public funds. Case in point: The government is now suing the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, one of the city’s storied antipoverty groups, for allegedly mismanaging funds and filling some of the nearly 300 social housing units under its purview, through a subsidiary, with people who didn’t meet government eligibility requirements.
Now Coleman is offering another $205-million splurge — along with $20 million from the Streetohome Foundation — that will create eight complexes, supposedly within three years. The provincial dollars are largely coming from his innovative plan of taking over the Vancouver Little Mountain social housing site, selling it off for redevelopment and using some of the profits for more social housing.
The aim is to fast-track the creation of 1,006 housing units within three years, for people who are homeless or in danger of being cast into the streets.
Let’s put the import of this initiative in perspective. It was estimated in March that there were 400 people living on the City of Vancouver’s streets and another 1,400 in emergency shelters.
It suggests city hall, the province and our community leaders may finally be turning the corner on homelessness. Social workers and police will soon have the facilities that allow them to offer housing to the city’s poorest, the first step in stabilizing their lives, offering treatment and even a return to work.
We just might fulfil the promised Olympic legacy of building a better city for the poorest after 2010. Who says government doesn’t work?
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